


Soulbound

by AtLAstuff



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Janaya Week 2020, Rip sleep but it’s janaya week and i love them so i had to bring out something, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22328551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtLAstuff/pseuds/AtLAstuff
Summary: Soulmate tattoos are something only elves and their soulmates get. Humans aren’t supposed to get them because, well, humans aren’t supposed to be the soulmate of an elf. But leave it up to Amaya to be the exception.
Relationships: Amaya/Janai (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 234
Collections: Soulmate AU





	Soulbound

She had no idea how long it had been her on her skin before Sarai had pointed it out, but she did remember vividly how she felt seeing the tattoo for the first time.

She was around 16 and they were both studying in their shared room, sitting beside each other, when her sister suddenly tapped on her shoulder. Sarai looked at her with big eyes, a confused look on her face. 

“ _ What?”  _ She had signed back, but Sarai gently took her arm, pointing at her upper bicep. 

And that’s when she saw it. A word,  _ a name _ , written gold in a small print, followed by the symbol of the sun. 

_ Janai.  _

All Amaya could do for the first couple of seconds was simply blink at her arm in confusion, not understanding how that had gotten there before it slowly began to hit her. 

It couldn’t be. It isn’t possible. Soulmates are an elf thing and an elf thing only. Humans don’t get  _ soulmates.  _ Humans definitely don’t get  _ elf soulmates.  _

How could an elf ever be her soulmate? How could the universe possibly pair her with  _ an elf _ ? What had she done to deserve this? 

How is this possible?

“ _ What does this mean?”  _ Sarai had asked, knowing just as well as Amaya did what this meant. 

Sure, she wasn’t super educated on anything elf related, but she never had heard of anything like this before. 

“ _ No one can know,”  _ Amaya had simply said back. It was impossible. Her sister nodded back. “ _ We don’t tell anyone.” _

Amaya is not one to be embarrassed about a lot of things. But this wasn’t about embarrassment, this was about her future. She always knew she wanted to be a general, but who would take a human general that is soulbound with an elf serious? They’d think of her as a spy or something along those lines. 

She got lucky it was Sarai who had discovered the tattoo, and not someone else. 

And so, from that day on she decided to keep her upper arm covered up at all times. 

~~

Sometimes, only sometimes, she would get bored and her mind would start to wander. And sometimes, the subject of those thoughts became her soulmate. She would never allow herself to dwell on it for long though, for her own sake. 

But what kind of symbol would her soulmate have next to Amaya’s name on her skin? Normally, the symbol was that of the primal source your soulmate is connected to, just like Amaya’s tattoo had the symbol of the sun next to it. Her soulmate was most definitely a Sunfire elf. 

As far as she knew, humans had no special symbols. But then again, she wasn’t exactly very knowledgeable on anything elf related, apart from the horrible stories she had heard over the past few years. 

None which made her feel any better about her situation. 

~~

Keeping it hidden was easier than she had ever expected, with most of her dresses and underdresses being long-sleeved, and with how often she wore full armour. 

Until she got a sword in her arm that is. It wasn’t too bad, she hadn’t even noticed during the battle, but when she looked at the wound later it was clear that it needed to be wrapped up with bandages if she wanted it to somewhat properly heal. And upper arms aren’t exactly the easiest place to wrap up yourself. 

Amaya looked at the bleeding wound again. Her sleeve luckily wasn’t ripped up enough yet to reveal her tattoo. 

She was going to have to ask Gren to help with the bandages, and he would see her tattoo no doubt. She was stressed even thinking about it, but there was no way she could possibly apply the bandages on her own. 

~~

“ _ I need you to help me,” _ she signed as soon as she entered his room. “ _ But I also need you to keep a secret for me.” _

Gren was good with secrets. And Gren was pretty non-judgemental too. Honestly, she would trust him with her life. It could’ve been worse. 

“ _ Of course, _ ” he signed back as she handed him the bandages, showing her bleeding arm that was still semi-covered with her sleeve. 

He didn’t look necessarily surprised by the wound. It was far from the first time either of them had gotten an injury, nor would it be the last time. Of course, the goal was to avoid any type of injury, but it kind of came with the job. 

“ _ The secret is not the wound, is it?”  _ He raised an eyebrow with a small smile on his lips. “ _ That would be a lousy secret.” _

Amaya shook her head, grabbing her sleeve in her hand. 

It was kind of nerve-wracking. All these years, no one knew. It was a secret she had shared with Sarai, only because Sarai was the first to notice. Though she must admit, if her sister hadn’t noticed, she probably would’ve told her herself. Keeping secrets from her sister was impossible. 

But the truth of the matter was, if this information got in wrong hands, she could lose her position in the army. And that’s the best-case scenario. 

Though, Gren is far from being ‘wrong hands’. She took one big breath and pulled up her sleeve. 

Somehow, Gren’s eyes grew double their size, but his lips spread into a grin. “ _ That’s amazing!”  _

Amaya couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows and cross her arms at that.  _ Amazing.  _ Right. 

After a second she signed. “ _ Really? Because I’m under the impression this could lose me my job.” _

“ _ Oh. Right,”  _ his face fell. “ _ But being soulbound! That’s something beautiful!” _

_ “Yea, between two elves maybe.” _

Knowing him, he would probably go on about the universe never being wrong or something like that. That  _ ‘her’ _ elf wouldn’t be so bad. That ‘ _ her _ ’ elf would be nothing like the stories. And that might be true, who knows. But both of them knew that’s not what Amaya wanted to hear right now, so he didn’t. “ _ If it helps, I doubt you’re the only human with a tattoo.”  _

_ “What makes you think that?” _

There weren’t any records of it in the past 100 years, she had looked it up after getting the tattoo. No recent books said anything about humans with tattoos. 

“ _ No, but think about it. I can imagine most people want to keep it a secret to protect themselves, right? Only a few people would go around telling everyone.” _

And with that, he grabbed the bandages and started wrapping it around her arm. 

She supposed he was right about that. The chances of her being the  _ only  _ one were slim. 

If that information helped though? She wasn’t too sure about that. 

She also couldn’t help but pull her judgement about elves into question sometimes. 

~~

When her nephews were kidnapped by that Moonshadow elf, all her preformed judgements seemed to be right. 

Still, a very tiny voice in the back of her head kept saying  _ ‘but that was a Moonshadow elf. Everyone knows they’re the worst’ _ . 

But even then. Her nephews were kidnapped by an elf, and she could not let that not have any consequences. 

~~

The first time she encountered Sunfire elves at the breach, she couldn’t help but feel a bit more stressed than when she encountered the Moonshadow elf. Granted, said Moonshadow elf was a literal teen and alone, while the Sunfire elves were in a group and one of them had a glowing hot sword, but still. The Moonshadow elf had been an assassin, so that should’ve counted for something. 

That stress, however, was quickly put aside. There was a job to do. 

And after all, she had been mentally preparing for it ever since she arrived at the breach. She had been expecting to find elves near the border, especially with recent events. And the fact that it would be Sunfire elves at this location did seem the most logical. 

Not going to the breach had never really been an option, but even if it was she would still be here. Of course, staying away from the elves as much as possible would be the best option for her. The best option in order to never meet her soulmate. But she couldn't do that. Not when the people counted on her to defend the border and keep Katolis safe. 

Still, after the battle, she had some trouble pushing everything out of her mind, as the image of one of the elves in particular kept showing up in her head. 

  
  


~~

  
  


Elves are bad. Of course they are. They’re monsters. 

But seeing this Sunfire elf hanging on to the edge of the cliff with only one hand, ready to fall to her death, Amaya could do nothing but help her. She knew full well they would capture her straight away if she did. But even if she didn’t help, they would still capture her straight away. 

So all she could do was reach out her hand and pull the elf up. And it felt strange, looking at each other right in the eye now, but she was nowhere near ready to think about what that might mean. 

  
  


~~

  
  


The elves had actually gotten a sign language interpreter for her, which was nice enough, except for the fact that she was most definitely not going to tell any inside information. No matter what. Still, she appreciated the effort. 

And well, she really couldn’t help but tell the Sunfire elf warrior to shove her sword up her ass, if only to see how the elf interpreting would translate it. Poor thing looked so uncomfortable as they did. 

“I suppose you think that’s funny?” The elf grabbed her face and Amaya nodded her head because, well, it kind of _ was _ . It definitely had riled succeeded in riling the elf up. 

What however was a bit less funny, was suddenly being pulled up, being told something about facing the queen. 

  
  
  


~~

  
  


Amaya wasn’t sure what was going on. With the two other elves standing behind her, rendering her unable to get an idea of what they’re saying, and with the queen sitting far away enough to make lipreading hard, she had absolutely no idea what was going on with the light ball in the staff. She did however know better than to look into the light. Being blind is really the last thing she needed right now, thank you very much. 

Which was until the other warrior grabbed her shoulders, getting closer to her face, forcing Amaya to read her lips. 

“You have to look into the light,” she said and Amaya wanted nothing more than to do anything but that. 

Why should she trust this elf with her sight? When sight is the most important thing she had?

But the thing is, she kind of did. 

They had fought against each other more than once, and she was definitely the elf’s prisoner, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel like the elf felt somewhat fond of her. Like she at least somewhat respected Amaya. 

Amaya had saved her life, so if this elf had any morals, she would do the same for her how. 

Amaya kind of trusted she had. So, she looked into the light, eyes watering and stinging, for what felt like way too long to ever be able to recover from it. 

And then everything went black as she was panting heavily, feeling completely drained, exhausted, and scared. It was the most scared Amaya had ever felt in her life. 

She blinked a couple of times, tears still hot on her cheek, but nothing came of it. Would she ever get her sight back? What would they do with her now? She had no other form of communication. 

She felt the heat of two hands through her sleeves, wrapped around her arm, pulling her up from her knees and guiding her, and then something cold pressing onto her eyelids, followed by bandages being wrapped around them. Guesses were the hands belonged to one of the two elves from earlier. Either the interpreter or the warrior. At the moment, Amaya would give anything to be able to see either of their faces. 

And she was  _ scared.  _ So scared. But the two warm hands that were on her arms before were now gently resting in her own hands. Four fingers enveloped in her five fingers. Amaya thought the elf would let go soon, that they would leave her here for however long, all alone. No such thing happened. 

There was just silence, darkness, fear, and the warm feeling of hands in hers for however many hours passed. 

~~

When the bandages were finally slowly taken off her eyes, her first instinct was to rub them as they itched and hurt. How many hours had passed, she didn’t know, but it felt like an eternity. Never again she wanted to experience this. 

However, as soon as she tried to raise her hands to rub her eyes, the hands that were still holding hers gave a light squeeze, pulling her hands back down in the meanwhile. 

Amaya squeezed her eyes shut for a second instead, before slowly trying to blink her eyes open. The light in the room was strong, and her eyes hurt like never before, but she had never been more relieved to see an elf than she was now. 

Right in front of her sat the Sunfire elf warrior she had saved before at the breach. The elf was looking at her with curious eyes, staring straight into her eyes, probably inspecting if they looked normal and okay. 

Amaya guessed they were even now. 

“ _ You stayed,” _ she couldn’t help but sign, and the elf looked away, faintly blushing. 

After one more tiny squeeze in her hands, the elf finally let go and stood up, leaving her alone in the ring of fire she had been in before, together with the interpreter, who was looking at her strangely. 

A slight suspicion arose once again, and maybe this time Amaya was ready to face it. 

Only then she realized she knew neither of your names.

“ _ What’s your name?”  _ She signed to the interpreter. 

“ _ Oh. Right,” _ their mouth moved as they signed. It’s quite remarkable a Sunfire elf would know Katolis-specific sign language, Amaya thought. “ _ I’m Kazi. And you?” _

You should never give the enemy your name, but at this point, neither Kazi nor the warrior seemed to be the enemy. 

“ _ Amaya.” _

_ “Oh, my—,” _ Kazi looked speechless, only furthering Amaya’s suspicion. “ _ That— I—“ _

_ “What’s hers?”  _ She asked instead. 

“ _ I really don’t think— you should probably ask her— I—-“ _

Yeah, okay, she was definitely right in her suspicion. There was no way Kazi would be this reluctant to tell her otherwise. 

_ “Tell me?”  _

Kazi sighed, looking around for a second as if she was hoping for the other elf to suddenly return to cut this conversation short. And then she signed. “ _ Janai.” _

And well, it could’ve been much worse. 

~~

Of course, Viren was playing dirty games again. Amaya should’ve expected it. In fact, she did expect it. She never should’ve left him alone. And who knows what he could do here? 

Janai didn’t seem too worried, saying something about purification. And really, Amaya trusted her and those Sunfire powers, but Janai didn’t know Viren as she did. Viren being here could never end up going well. 

She was surprised to see how easily Janai had trusted her on this matter though, after she had told her how dangerous he was. Not only had Janai gotten her out of this ring of fire almost straight away, but she had also given Amaya her armour back and everything. Janai could’ve stopped him on her own if she really wanted to, or taken Amaya with her like that. Yet, she trusted her enough to give her her armour. 

Somehow, somewhere, they really had established a mutual form of deep trust, and Amaya was really surprised how easy and fast it had been, and how much she wasn’t worried about that at all. 

~~

They were late. Way too late. Even Amaya, who knew absolutely nothing of this ritual, could see this was going very, extremely wrong. 

They rushed forward, but when the Sunfire queen stood on the edge of the platform, some other type of elf Amaya had never seen before leaning into her, she knew it was too late. They couldn’t save her. And she knew how bad Janai was going to take it. She couldn’t blame her either. Kazi had said the queen, called Khessa, and Janai were sisters, and Amaya herself still thought about Sarai every day. 

But she wouldn’t let Janai do anything she’d regret. As soon as the elf’s skin it up, she knew she had to do something or it would mean Janai’s own death. Amaya understood more than anyone that Janai wanted her revenge, and that she was angry. But she wouldn’t survive going out there now. Viren and whoever the fuck that other elf was were way too powerful. 

Amaya tackled her, keeping her pinned to the ground for her own safety, even if Janai’s skin burned through her glove. She could not let go, but she hoped her face displayed the fact that she was only trying to help, not work against her for other reasons. That she was here for Janai. The elf’s skin returned to normal as she started screaming in despair, and then crying, and Amaya could do nothing but trying to comfort her in any way she could. 

Once Janai wasn’t going to run out anymore, she loosened her grip, only to pull the elf up to embrace her in a tight hug. And they sat there, once again, for what felt like hours. With Janai sobbing in Amaya’s arms, and Amaya soothingly stroking the other’s back. 

~~

Now wasn’t the time, she knew that too, but it wasn’t fair for Janai not to know. She had to know. Which is why, when Janai’s sobs started evening out and she started regaining posture, Amaya pulled back. 

Janai’s eyes were red and puffy, but she had stopped crying and was looking at the floor. Amaya shuffled back a bit more to leave some space but touched Janai’s arm to grab her attention once again. 

And well, here it goes. 

She lifted up her sleeve, looking away, not wanting to see the elf’s reaction. Perhaps a bit scared of the elf’s reaction. 

Until she felt warm fingers tracing her bicep. Suddenly, Amaya couldn’t bear to look away. 

Janai’s face did not display many emotions, but she lightly went over her own name on Amaya’s arm, and then traced the symbol of the sun, before looking back at Amaya with the tiniest smile on her face. Her eyes still betrayed her sadness from the recent events, and Amaya didn’t blame her one bit. 

“I have one too,” Janai finally spoke and removed her shoulder plates of the armour. Amaya didn’t see anything at first, but when Janai turned around, sweeping her hair over her right shoulder, she could see her own name written in white simple letters. No symbols or anything else that might indicate she’s human. But her name was there, and it was clear. 

She stood up, holding out her hand to help Janai up too. 

They had too much to do. 

Amaya didn’t think for a second that their encounter with Viren was over. The hardest part most likely hadn’t even begun. And they had to prepare. Together, they could properly lead the army of Sunfire elves. If Janai let her. 

~~

The battle flashed before her in a second, so many hurt, so many lives lost. It was difficult and taxing, but they had done it. They had defeated Viren’s army. 

Gren threw his arms around her as was crying, but she was so glad to see her best friend still alive and well. 

“ _ I’m worried, this is not over until we find Viren,”  _ she told the others, and Janai called for a search of the whole battlefield. 

And Janai looked just as beautiful as before the battle. They had fought side by side, and they had won. Janai had helped them in all possible ways she could and she was looking at Amaya with care and fondness. 

Amaya couldn’t help but grab her hands in her own and  _ wow  _ did she really want to kiss Janai. She smiled lightly, first looking at Janai’s lips and then eyes, hoping the elf understood what she was trying to say. 

She wasn’t sure which of them ended up leaning in first, but the feeling of warm lips pressed against hers felt truly amazing. Letting go of Janai’s hands, she grabbed her hips instead, pulling them closer together. 

And at that moment, she swore she could do this forever if the elf let her. 

And judging from Janai’s reaction, she agreed. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I’m not very good with one word prompts, but I do love my soulmate AUs! So, this is my contribution to Janaya week 2020. Might post some more things this week, but I can’t promise anything. Hope you all enjoyed it ^^


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